Day/Year Principle

This is an exhaustive list of texts establishing the day/ year principle as Scriptural. In the
Old Testament it’s very common to use a day and a year is used synonymously. When
specific numbers of days are mentioned in the Bible symbolically or prophetically it
represents that number of days in years. The examples of specific days as prophetic
years is highlighted in the references below in bold.

! Genesis 5:5 - And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years:
! and he died.

! Genesis 5:8 - And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and
! he died.

! Genesis 5:11 - And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he
! died.

! Genesis 5:14 - And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and
! he died.

! Genesis 5:17 - And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five
! years: and he died.

! Genesis 5:20 - And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years:
! and he died.

! Genesis 5:27 - And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine
! years: and he died.

! Genesis 5:31 - And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven
! years: and he died.

! Genesis 6:3 - And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that
! he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

! Genesis 9:29 - And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he
! died.

! Genesis 11:32 - And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah
! died in Haran.

! Genesis 25:7 - And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived,
! an hundred threescore and fifteen years.
! Genesis 29:26-29 - And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give
! the younger before the firstborn. (27) Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also
! for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. (28) And Jacob
! did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. (29)
! And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.

NOTE: The younger is Rachel. Laban asks Jacob to fulfill her, Rachel’s week, which he
calls seven years.

! Genesis 35:28 - And the days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years.
!
! Genesis 47:9 - And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my
! pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years
! of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my
! fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

! Numbers 14:34 - After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even
! forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye
! shall know my breach of promise.

! 1Samuel 29:3 - Then said the princes of the Philistines, What do these Hebrews
! here? And Achish said unto the princes of the Philistines, Is not this David, the
! servant of Saul the king of Israel, which hath been with me these days, or these
! years, and I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me unto this day?

! 2Samuel 21:1 - Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after
! year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and
! for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.

! 1Kings 2:11 - And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven
! years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem.

! 1Kings 14:20 - And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years:
! and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

! 1Kings 18:1 - And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came
! to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain
! upon the earth.

! 2Kings 20:6 - And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and
! this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own
! sake, and for my servant David’s sake.

! 2Chronicles 14:1 - So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of
! David: and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years.
! 2Chronicles 24:15 - But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; an
! hundred and thirty years old was he when he died.

In Hebrew poetry, the day for year principle is seen through synonymous, antithetical,
and synthetic parallelism. Synonymous parallelism “involves the repetition in the
second part of what has already been expressed in the first, while simply varying the
words.”1 Antithetical parallelism is “where the meaning of two or more excerpts of text
are observed, although directly linked by providing the same meaning from differing
perspectives.”2 Synthetic parallelism “involves the completion or expansion of the idea
of the first part in the second part.”3

! Job 10:5 - Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man’s days,

! Job 15:20 - The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of
! years is hidden to the oppressor.
!
! Job 32:7 - I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.

! Job 36:11 - If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and
! their years in pleasures.

! Psalm 77:5 - I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.

! Psalm 78:33 - Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in
! trouble.

! Psalm 90:9,10 - For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years
! as a tale that is told. (10) The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if
! by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and
! sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

! Psalm 90:15 -Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and
! the years wherein we have seen evil.

! Proverbs 9:11 - For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall
! be increased.

! Proverbs 10:27 - The fear of the Lord prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked
! shall be shortened.

1 https://britannica.com/topic/synonymous-parallelism!
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antithetic_parallelism
3 https://www.britannica.com/topic/synthetic-parallelism
! Ecclesiastes 6:3 - If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that
! the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he
! have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

! Ecclesiastes 11:8 - But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him
! remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
! Isaiah 34:8 - For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompences
! for the controversy of Zion.

! Isaiah 38:10 - I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave:
! I am deprived of the residue of my years.

! Ezekiel 4:5,6 - For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the
! number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of
! the house of Israel. (6) And when thou hast !accomplished them, lie again on thy
! right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have
! appointed thee each day for a year.

! Ezekiel 38:8 - After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt
! come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many
! people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is
! brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.

! Malachi 3:4 - Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the
! Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.